'Chelsea Lately' comics coming to Anaheim

All four comics heading to City National Grove of Anaheim on Friday agree that they never realized how much their lives would drastically change after joining Chelsea Handler's empire. For Heather McDonald (bottom left), Brad Wollack (right), Jen Kirkman (top right) and Fortune Feimster (top left) signing on with the best-selling author and television star meant stability in the otherwise rocky world of comedy.

The four personalities work as writers on the E! Network's late-night talk show and regularly appear on Handler's round-table discussions with other famous or rising comics to dish on daily pop-culture happenings.

Chelsea Lately debuted in 2007 and was an almost instant hit, spawning Comedians of Chelsea Lately tours as well as a spin-off – After Lately, a scripted reality sitcom exploring what happens behind the scenes of the show – and another New York Times chart-topping book, Lies Chelsea Handler Told Me, for which her writers contributed chapters on the playful misleadings of their boss.

“I got out all of my emotions on paper,” says Wollack, co-creator of After Lately. “I think people are so fascinated by Chelsea and the world she has created. The book peers into that world and it peeled back the layers, and it was fun for people. My chapter was the longest because I think I've been lied to the most.”

Wollack, the show's resident “ginger” (as Handler refers to him), gets the most abuse from the host during round-table sessions. She often calls him names and plays up how mean she is to him, but the target of her ridicule says it's all done with love.

“Behind the scenes she's not mean to me,” he says. “We can have a conversation without me being verbally or physically abused. It's weird, though, because on the show Chelsea is mean to me and then fans think they can come up and say really rude things to me. I'm like, ‘Really, people? Do you think if she hated me I'd be employed for this long by her?'”

McDonald, once a writer on The Keenen Ivory Wayans Show and MTV's Lyricist Lounge before joining Chelsea Lately, says she's always been a fan of Handler's stand-up. The two then-struggling comics initially met at a bar in Westwood years ago.

“That bar should not have had stand-up,” McDonald recalls. “Everyone was talking and drinking, and I looked at this girl on stage who was so young and she was screaming about the Titanic and how her boyfriend wouldn't pick her up from the airport, let alone let her have the door to float on, like Leonardo DiCaprio did. It was just her bitching in that Jersey accent. We were just acquaintances back then who respected each other and she was always really nice to me.”

In 2007 McDonald joined the writers of the show and signed on for a 13-week commitment.

“That's all I thought it would be,” she says. “I never thought when I took it that this would be a life-changing job. It just kept building and building.”

McDonald, whom Handler has dubbed Heather “Long Boobs” McDonald on the show, does a lot of impersonations in various sketches throughout the program. She's got an arsenal lined up as needed, but says there's one she might retire.

“I can no longer do Amy Winehouse,” she says. “But I love doing Céline Dion and Drew Barrymore and the various Housewives of whatever. I like doing Miley Cyrus and Kim Cattrall or Judge Judy.”

Though none of the celebrities she imitates have called her out on it, she has heard from a few of the Real Housewives and The Facts of Life star Geri Jewell.

“A couple of the ‘Real Housewives' have seen my impressions and they love it,” she says. “Some of the ones I haven't done are like, ‘Why won't you do me?' I did one of Geri Jewell and she came to my book signing in L.A. Ninety percent of me was like, ‘OK, she's a comedian and she likes it.' But I was nervous. She told me she really liked and thought it was funny.”

For Kirkman, being a stand-up comic wasn't in her plans – she thought she'd be a dancer or an actress. But when she'd audition for serious dramatic roles, she got turned down flat.

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